


Survivor's Guilt

by TheNinth



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Dark, Depression, Destruction, Gen, Survivor Guilt, Time War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-09
Updated: 2011-06-09
Packaged: 2017-10-20 06:54:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/209968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheNinth/pseuds/TheNinth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Doctor Who, Ninth Incarnation, Survivor's Guilt (post Time War) -- He knows he's changed again and he's not sure why. Why him? Why, out of all of them, was he left? Why was he left standing barefoot in the console room, staring at the utter devastation?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Survivor's Guilt

**Author's Note:**

> [](http://darlingfox.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**darlingfox**](http://darlingfox.dreamwidth.org/) requested "Any, Any, Survivor's Guilt" [here](http://fic-promptly.dreamwidth.org/63300.html)

He doesn't know how long it's been burning. Doesn't know how it could still _be there_ to _be_ burning. But he can see it there, on the screen, the whole planet just a burning rock moving inexorably toward a star where it will be finished once and for all.

His clothes don't fit. They're too short. Too tight in some places and too baggy in others. The shoes had been so tight it'd been (hours? days?) before he could walk again after finally prying them off. He knows he's changed again and he's not sure why. Why him? Why, out of all of them, was he left? Why was he left standing barefoot in the console room, staring at the utter devastation?

It doesn't matter how many times he's run away from that place, it was still his home.

Suddenly, being a gypsy doesn't seem like fun. There's no point in being such a gadabout when there isn't anyone to give him disapproving looks. No metaphorical parents waiting by the door for him to sneak in past curfew.

No parents.

No children.

No grandchildren.

No friends, colleagues, rivals, bureaucrats... Leela. Andred. Romana. Susan. So many names and faces gone. Just _gone_ as if they hadn't been important and here he is, in ill-fitting trousers and hands that look wrong against the TARDIS controls and _why_ is it him standing here? Why not them? Why not Romana or Susan or Azmael or Flavia or...!

Names. Just names. Names he's already forgetting. There's just him. The Doctor. The rule-breaker. The troublemaker. The runaway. Alive while all the rest of them had burned.

"Is this a joke?" He asks and starts at the sound of his voice echoing. "This voice. This _voice_ is a joke. Me still being here, that's not a joke. That's a _punishment_." The word sounds good in his new, harsh, Northern accent. Fitting. "Punishment" he spits and pounds one fist against the console, finally shutting off the view of the planet burning just outside.

"Punishment," he mutters again, not quite sobbing as he sinks to his knees and cradles his head in his hands. "This is what I get for always running away. I don't even get the dignity of dying with them."

His TARDIS is humming in an odd way. The walls and floors are almost vibrating with the sound and he swears that if he didn't know better he'd think the TARDIS was crying. Gently, he strokes the keys and knobs and buttons and levers. He doesn't dare turn on the viewer again. Doesn't dare ask her for a mirror to see who he is now. Can't even think about setting a destination. If he tried, he'd probably set it for the heart of a star so that he and the TARDIS could burn together.

He stands, determined to do just that. It's only right. The only fitting thing to do. If his survival was an accident then his death must be intentional.

Coordinates entered, lever pulled, he closes his eyes and waits.


End file.
